After Exposing Sexism In The Video Game Industry, This Woman Received Rape Threats On Twitter

Julie Bort, provided by

Published 7:58 pm, Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Anita Sarkeesian was forced to leave her home and stay with friends after she recieved an outpouring of violent threats over Twitter.

Sarkeesian is a a media critic and the creator of Feminist Frequency, a video web series that explores how women are portrayed in pop culture.

Lately she's been digging into the appallingly sexist world of video games. She just posted a video that showed how many video games treat woman as sexual playthings and "the perpetual victims of male violence," as the video is described.

Whenever someone (particularly a woman) criticizes the way women are portrayed or treated in the gaming industry, that person is almost certainly guaranteed to be subjected to threats of violence.

We've heard a lot of horrifying stories like this with Sarkeesian's among the worst. After the video was posted she tweeted:

Some very scary threats have just been made against me and my family. Contacting authorities now.

And here's the most horrifying part. She also shared the specific list of threats being tweeted at her (warning: it's very graphic). They are so appalling that we won't run them on Business Insider. What we will say is that a person threatened to rape, mutilate, and "drink her blood."

She also shared an anonymous message from someone who emailed her via her website, calling her obscene names.

As The Journal reported, this stuff was so bad, famed Hollywood writer, director and producer Joss Whedon came to her defense on Twitter for both the documentary series and the scary tweets. (His credits include "The Avengers," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and "Toy Story.")